The Devil's in the Details
by Woman of Letters
Summary: It's Dean and the Devil, fighting for Sam's sanity. But how can Sam tell who is real? An Entry for the the Hunter's Journal Contest for June 2013.


**The Devil's in the Details**

by Woman of Letters

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An Entry for the Hunter's Journal Contest for June.

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_A/N Based on the cap posted for the Hunter's Journal contest on the Positively_SPN community on LiveJournal (positively-spn DOT livejournal DOT com SLASH 35341 DOT htm). General spoilers for episode 7X02, Hello, Cruel World. Yes, the dialogue is different than what's in the episode, but I like the way this came out. It's the first time I've tried to write around/about a scene without actually using some of the words that were in the transcript._

_I also want to give a shout-out to CasXxGrippedXxMeXxTight's story, Just Breathe (Add /s/8147946/1/Just-Breathe after the fanfiction site URL), which was a big inspiration for this. She also juxtaposes two different scenes and goes in and out between the two of them. I thought her story was brilliant, and highly recommend it._

Word count: 1400

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_**"This is real..."**_

Sam flinched, the gun pointing at Dean as his brother gripped his hand, pressing into the half-healed wound, hurting him. His brother's familiar green eyes flashed up at him, conveying the rock-solid comfort that Sam had learned to depend on at an early age. The hard-as-flint concern that shone from the depths of those eyes, even when Dean was lighting into Sam for some stupid mistake he had made, for having to bail him out yet again. The tinder that would burst into flames at the slightest sign that some _douchebag_ was threatening his brother.

It was the face of the man who'd taken care of him for most of the 29 years of his life.

But five minutes ago, he'd seen Dean's face, heard Dean's voice. Urging him to kill himself.

And it had all been in his head.

The doubt tore through him like the pain radiating from his hand. The pain his brother was causing.

"Sam... This is real..." Dean urged. "This is different than what you felt in Hell." Gingerly, he reached out for the gun.

_**"He's not real."**_

The words, softly spoken, came from the Devil, who was now standing next to Dean and looked just as solid as his brother. Those blue eyes pierced Sam with mocking knowledge. Those eyes that could show the deepest of emotions, from concern to love to hate to everything in between. The ones that begged for trust but would change in an instant. The eyes he'd been forced to stare at for 180 years.

The eyes he had learned to read as well as his brother's.

The two men stood, side by side, and Sam looked in confusion at the two most formative influences of his existence.

The words echoed in his head._ This is real..._

_Who was real?_

Dean squeezed his hand and the pain ricocheted through him...

_**pelting like pins and needles, singeing like the burn you felt after you were numb, from head to toe, from frostbite and there was no feeling, nothing...and then your whole body was on fire and the fingers and toes you could have sworn had fallen off were burning up like marshmallows over a campfire...**_

_**The blue-eyed adversary was laughing at Sam, like he was roasting him over his own private cookout, and Dean was no longer there. The warehouse had disappeared. Sam was back in the cage, hair blackening and skin melting and he had given up screaming long ago.**_

_**"He's not real, Sam. I'm the only thing you can count on."**_

_**"This isn't...real. You're not real." How can I speak? he wondered.**_

_**"I'm the only reality that's constant. Your brother certainly wasn't." **_

_**"My brother was there for me, bastard, since I was a baby."**_

_**"But he never trusted you."**_

The hand that crushed his palm brought memory, like a wound festering under the skin, chafing at his mind. Sam blinked and realized that he was still in the warehouse, and the flames weren't real. Or were they? Dean was standing there, and his grip _felt_ solid. But right next to him, Lucifer loomed.

_This is real._

Dean's words cut through Sam's pain-wracked psyche. "Take this. Build on it." Dean tried to take the gun and, unconsciously, Sam tightened his grip.

_Build on it... the pain..._

_The pain... the pain was real..._

_**the pain that went on endlessly. But much more so, the emotional torment, as, within the pit of fire, Lucifer forced Sam to dredge up every memory of Dean, to examine his brother with the laser focus of the deranged. **_

_**"It started with Stanford, didn't it? They never understood you."**_

_**Images of a much younger Dean standing, hands on both him and John, pushing them apart, played out in the fire, like a pyrotechnic special effect.**_

_**Sam watched himself pulling away from Dean, who was running after him, tugging at his shoulder. **_

_**"They wouldn't trust you. Wouldn't let you go." The Devil smirked. "No wonder you needed to get out of there."**_

_**Sam remembered his brother's hurt-filled eyes as Dean watched him walk off in the night, duffel slung over his shoulder. On the road to Stanford.**_

_**"It wasn't like that," he said. "I mean, it was, but it wasn't. He **_**did**_** let me go."**_

_**"Really? And that's why he was going to destroy your acceptance letter."**_

_**The images in the flames changed again. Sam and Dean in a motel room. Sam snatched a letter from Dean's hands. The logo on top was clearly visible. "Stanford University?"**_

_**Dean tried to hide the lighter in his other hand. "I was going to show it to you..." he said, but Sam cut him off.**_

_**"No you weren't."**_

_**"I was, Sam. You've got to believe me."**_

A fresh jolt spiraled through him, and Sam wasn't sure if it was the agony of his separation from Dean, the torture of the pit, or the pain of his wound being reopened in the warehouse, where the Devil was a hallucination and Dean was trying to keep him sane.

_Or was Dean the hallucination?_

But Dean was talking to him.

"You've got to believe me," his brother said, and the smoke of the fire cleared, and again, it was just him, his brother, and Lucifer.

"I stitched up this wound, Sam," said Dean, pushing his thumb into the laceration. His face was pale, as if he felt every measure of the hurt he inflicted. "This is real. Build on it."

_**"You're building on smoke and mirrors, Sam."**_

_**"That's funny, coming from the Lord of Lies."**_

_**"And you were my greatest apprentice, Sam. You lied to your brother from day one. You didn't tell him about Ruby."**_

_**"I didn't think I could," Sam explained. "He wouldn't have understood."**_

_**"Come on, Sam, you were just trying to do the right thing. Why couldn't Dean see that? A little detail like a few drops of demon blood shouldn't matter..."**_

_**"The devil's in the details..."**_

_**Sam argued for Dean, but Lucifer played on his doubts, his fears, all the little schisms that had come between him and his brother over the years.**_

_**"If that trust had been there, Sam, if you thought Dean would listen..."**_

_**"That was my mistake," Sam asserted. "The trust was there. All I had to do was reach out..."**_

as his brother was reaching out to him now. The tight grip on Sam's reopened scab, the blood trickling from the raw wound, pulled him out of the depths of perdition.

"Sam, come on, man," his brother was saying. "The Devil's locked up. Don't let him win." Dean's eyes hardened. His shoulders tensed, determination showing in every line of his body. "Damn it, Sam, I won't let you go!"

_**"You see?" mocked Lucifer, his mouth twisted into a sardonic smile, "Even now, he won't let you go. But he doesn't have you, Sam."**_

_**And Sam was pulled back to an earlier time, when they were hot in pursuit of the demon that had killed their mother. They were standing on a bridge, preparing to deal the killing blow to their lifelong enemy. Talking about what would come after.**_

_**"You've got to let me go," Sam insisted. He turned towards Dean, trying to explain why he needed to live his own life, why hunting could never be his fate.**_

_**"I can't, Sam," Dean vowed. "I won't let you go."**_

_I won't let you go. _Those words were real.

But he had. Dean had let Sam go. And now he was back, and his brother was holding on, dragging him from one world of pain into another.

_**This is real. Trust this. Build on it. You've got to believe me. **_

_The pain was real. Dean was real._

_**Once again, Sam faced his adversary. He recalled the moment, more than 180 years ago in relative time, that his brother had shown him perfect trust.**_

_**"He let me jump," was all Sam said. And the Devil was silent.**_

Sam placed the gun in his brother's hand, and looked into green eyes blown wide with relief. He saw Dean. Only Dean. His big brother. Who had trusted Sam to take responsibility. Who had let him jump into everlasting torment, with the Devil inside him. Who had put aside the mantle of big brotherhood, though it killed him to do so.

Sam smiled. "I'm here, Dean." His brother was here, at last. They'd figure it out. Together.

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_A/N This story references a scene that I have in the first chapter of Burning Bridges, where Dean almost burns Sam's acceptance letter to Stanford. If you haven't read that chapter, which I posted late last week, I highly suggest you do. Those of you on LiveJournal should check out the community I co-run with Raloria, Positively_SPN. We're a very inclusive community, full of love for the show. Come. Join us. We have pie. :)_


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